Health Effects of Cat Litter Box

Video Transcript

"We're here today to talk about health concerns relating to the litter box. the number one concern really, when it comes to the litter box is usually for pregnant women, or people with a compromised immune system. The thing that most people are concerned with is toxoplasmosis. For a pregnant woman, the contracts toxolasmosis, which they can contract through handling cat feces. The major concerns are still birth, a miscarriage, birth defects, and probably the scariest of all the possibilities is that your child can contract schizophrenia through exposure to toxoplasmosis. However, the good news is that you can have your cat tested for toxoplasmosis. Which means you can take the cat to the vet run a blood test to see if your cat actually has toxoplasmosis. Toxoplasmosis is pretty rare and odds are your cat does not have toxoplasmosis. And then, for the duration of your pregnancy, if you keep the cat indoors, it's almost impossible that the cat is going contract it. Even if toxoplasmosis is really not a concern for you because your cat is into carrier, and your cat is kept indoors. You still want to handle the litter box with care. Particularly for a person who has any kind of health concern, to really want to make sure that you're maintaining an immaculate litter box. That means, like this is a brand new litter box. I like to change out my litter box about once every six months, because even if you're using bleach to disinfect it, you still, the cat can scratch the plastic and get these little grooves and crevices where bacteria can build up. So you want to change out that litter box. In the meanwhile, you know, there's lots of different kinds of litter that have lots of different claims. Scoopable litters. Lots of scoopable litters will say you don't have to change litter for, except for like, once a month. You just want to take a scoop and scoop out the solids and the chunks of, that form from the urine. The problem with that, is even though you're getting rid of all the solids, they still leave bacteria behind. So I strongly recommend that you go ahead and change out the entire litter, but you know, change out all of the litter at least once a week at the very least every other week. Depending on your cat's usage and how many litter boxes you have in the house. But mainly to keep down the amount of bacteria that's going to build up in the box. You're going to want to mix up a ten percent bleach solution. So that means for every one part bleach you have ten parts water. And use that. Put that in the bucket. Add some water. Then what you can do is pour that bleach solution into your empty litter box. Have a dedicated brush. Maybe even a dedicated bucket. That's just for that. Because you certainly don't want to end up doing your dishes with it. And give it a nice scrub, scrub, scrub, and then you can pour the solution down the sink. And I sometimes actually do this outside because I'm not so crazy about getting and cat feces in my kitchen area. But anyway, then you'll have a nice disinfected box. The other thing you can do is eave it outdoors to dry out in the sun. And the sun is a great disinfectant. Before you fill it up, and bring it back in the house. ANd now you have a clean litter box."